Pages

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Really No Smoking (or Chewing)

From the Oakland Tribune: [excerpt]

A
systemwide smoking ban at University of California campuses includes the
controversial electronic cigarette, a tobacco smoking device whose
backers claim is safer than traditional smokes. The ban takes effect Jan. 2 and includes smokeless tobacco, or chew.

About
10 percent of UC employees smoke cigarettes, and 8 percent of students
smoke, according to a fact sheet compiled by the university. The
information kit does not say how many use the new electronic cigarettes
on UC campuses or in the state, but a lobbying group for the retailers
who sell the devices says about 4 million people across the country use
them.

"We don't know what the long term health affects are," said
Josh Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health
in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley and a member of the UC
committee that wrote the smoking ban...